Fish flicking.

[Discus Dan]

Hi everybody, a few of my discus have started flicking themselves on leaves and the driftwood in the tank. I also noticed that my blue rams have tiny white spots on the tails the same as a couple of the discus. Is this normal or should I do something about it?

[ILLUSN]

Could be disease. How's the water quality? one of my new fish got a few white spots on the tail and fins after some rough transport, a few good big water changes, bumping the tank up to 30C and a treatment with metro and some bloodworms, now looking brilliant. flicking could be gill paracites.

[martraci]

actually could not be ILLUSN, i notice when i put new rummies in my tank from the LFS they always get white spots on their fins. im sure its from the temperature increase because not so long ago i rasied the temp and some had spots again.
i find that in a few days they dissappear (my water changes are 50% twice weekly, also add less than normal salt dosage because higher levels maybe good for discus but kill smaller fish; which is about 1tbsp/60L)
dan i honestly dont know what it could be but if the symptoms progress (spots on discus spread) then its definately a disease, im just saying spots on the other fish might go away without treatment

[DiscusEden]

Hi guys,

From what I've read, the white spots could be a number of things -

ammonia burn, which will right itself if no secondary infection develops, often from transport

ich/white spot - needs treatment or it will spread & is potentially fatal, causes rubbing

velvet disease - more serious, spreads & needs treatment

fungal infection - usually at the site of damage, again, needs treatment

Could also be a grain of sand that I panicked about last week. Idjit.

So, as Illusn said, keep an eye on it, if it gets worse, treat it.

How's it going now? Any changes?

[Discus Dan]

Thanks for the tips,

Went to my LFS and he gave a treatment to put in the tank. Take 3 days so I'll wait and see.

[Greggy]

Depending on what your trying to treat (e.g. Ich aka White Spot) then re-treating again in 3 days will not completely cure it.

For example, to erradicate Ich bring the temp up to at least 30 degrees C and treat the tank as described on the medication's bottle (in terms of dose rate) but continue treatment for at least 2 weeks. By that I mean if you are treating for Ich with a Formaldehyde based medication (which is very effective against Ich) and the bottle says to treat again in 3 days, you must basically give the treatment again on days 4, 7, 10 and 13. Note that this much Formaldehyde medication will really kick your biological filter in the guts (i.e. your tank will cycle again upon completion) so only feed tiny amounts every few days. You don't have to worry about Ammonia during treatment with Formaldehyde as it binds with Ammonia but you might have to watch Nitrites. After treatment concludes you WILL have to watch your Ammonia and Nitrite levels, with big water changes being the order of the day once you complete medication i.e. on day 16

As you know white spots can be caused by several reasons so you need to be careful with how you proceed. I have noticed that after treating with meds that kill off the biological filtration that even small amounts of detected Ammonia can cause Discus to show signs as if they have gill flukes, such as rapid breathing and flared gills etc, which normally stops around the same time your are totally over water changes! :)

Let us know how it all goes.

Regards,

Greggy